Wednesday, May 08, 2013

With everything to read and be concerned about -- like Mayor Carlos Gimenez narrowly dodging a political defeat over the Dolphin Stadium debacle-- why worry about the drought in parts of India and Southeast Asia?

A doctor, unsolicited, explained it very well to me yesterday: the 25th parallel north is a latitude that crosses through Florida. It also crosses some of the most arid regions of the globe: including the deserts of Algeria, Libya, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, the UAE, and some of the hardest hit drought stricken areas of India.

In Southeast Asia, more than a billion people depend on monsoon rains for drinking water and agriculture. In Florida, we call them "summer rains". In our region, those rains replenish extraordinarily shallow aquifers that once defined the Everglades ecosystem but now have either been paved or converted to agriculture. The recent uncertainties about weather patterns, including the monsoons in Asia, track with our own weather changes in south Florida: abnormally dry in the long term (notwithstanding recent downpours).

Last year in parts of India, the monsoon rain was seventy percent less than normal. In February, I traveled both to drought-stricken southern India and across the Bay of Bengal, to Myanmar.

One of Myanmar's iconic destinations -- Inle Lake -- is bears a clear resemblance to the liquid heart of Florida, Lake Okeechobee.

Both are regional fresh water resources serving abundant wetlands. Lake Okeechobee nourishes -- or used to-- the Everglades and estuaries running toward both coasts of Florida. In the case of Inle Lake, the fresh water serves native populations that have lived in traditional cultures spanning, continuously, over two thousand years. (It is as though the ancestors of the Tequestas still ran downtown Miami.)

Ours was among the last group of tourists able to navigate the southern section of Inle Lake. Much of the lake, only a few months later, is impassible.

In South Florida, our rainfall and water table have been careening between severe drought and dry conditions, notwithstanding the recent downpours.

The demands of population growth in Asia have put a very tight focus on water management, as they have here in Florida.

The very low levels of Myanmar's Irrawaddy -- one of the great rivers of the world -- are due in large part to hydro-electric dams in China to the north. The mismanagement of water resources in Florida is primarily due to the influence of radical extremists controlling Big Sugar, that dominate legislatures from local government to Congress and the White House.

Sugar also plays a role in drought and misallocation of water resources in India. In "Natural Calamity or Man-Made One", Reuters reports: "... government policy mandates no more than 5 percent of irrigated land can be used to grow sugarcane, yet nearly 40 percent of the total irrigated land in Pune, a district in Maharashtra, is under cane cultivation. Activists allege the skewed water distribution is due to close connections that politicians in Maharashtra have with sugar factories and cooperatives, some of which are controlled by the government ministers. India’s agriculture minister Sharad Pawar, who is from Maharashtra, has dismissed the allegations, saying that only 7 percent of water meant for farmers was diverted to industry. Few believe that, and experts warn of dire consequences in the region, if water management isn’t improved. “If non-sustainable land and water use continue, the drought will spread even when rainfall is normal. The most vulnerable immediately are the poor who will be forced to migrate as environmental refugees. Agrarian distress and farmers` suicides will increase because farmers have spent huge amounts on costly seeds and chemicals, and crop failure will make the debt trap a death trap,” says prominent environmental activist Vandana Shiva. “In a drought-prone area, water harvesting is the answer not water mining. Maharashtra needs to harvest its rain, not mine its groundwater and reroute its rivers to rich sugar barons.”

Those words fall on deaf ears among India's powerful, as they do in Florida.

It’s that “Will they? Won’t they?” time of year in India. The annual monsoon season is due and – given that the country’s mostly rain-fed agriculture makes up 15 percent of gross domestic product, with hundreds of millions of Indians dependent on it – these rains are a serious business.

Before its onset in June, right through the end of the season in September, we track the monsoon’s trajectory, pore over data, question forecasters, speak to pundits – all in hope of getting an accurate analysis on whether India will receive timely and adequate rainfall.

This year, initial forecasts predict an average amount of rainfall.

However, for some states like India’s drought-hit western region of Maharashtra, even if the rains are plentiful, it won’t solve itswater crisis.

In these parched farmlands, where thousands of villages have little drinking water or fodder for cattle, it is not the lack of rain that is to blame, say activists and commentators, but the poor management of scarce water, resulting in what they are calling a man-made drought.

POOR WATER MANAGEMENT

South Asia is one of the world’s most water-stressed, yet while the population is adding an extra 25 million people a year, the region’s per capita water availability has dropped by 70 percent since 1950, says the Asian Development Bank.

In India, the dry months before the onset of the monsoons result in frequent blackouts due to empty hydropower dams, water shortages in posh colonies in cities, and even riots over water when back-up water tankers are called in to residential areas.

While erratic weather patterns due to climate change may be partly to blame, experts say a poor approach to conserving and managing water resources is the crux of the problem.

Our rivers, streams and lakes are polluted beyond belief, and illegal, unregulated over-extraction of groundwater has left us with a serious water crisis in many parts of the country.

One of the worst examples of poor water management and its impact on local populations is in Maharashtra.

Basic water conservation through projects such as rainwater harvesting been lacking, say experts, but even more worrying are reports of allegations of corruption in irrigation tenders and the diversion of water meant for farmers to industries.

An analysis by the South Asian Network for Dams, Rivers and People (SANDRP) disputes rainfall in Maharashtra in 2012 is lower than in 1972, when the region faced it worst ever drought.

“From a meteorological and agricultural point of view, this year’s drought cannot be called worse than that in 1972. It is possible that hydrologically, this year’s drought may prove to be worse than 1972 for some districts,” said the March report.

“The blame for this lies entirely on wrong decisions about building unviable and undesirable large dams, wrong cropping patterns, diversion of water for non priority uses, neglect of local water systems and unaccountable water management.”

DIVERTED WATER

Maharashtra has the largest number of dams in the country – more than 3,000 – built to not only generate power, but also to provide water for millions of farmers and service the state’s burgeoning industries.

However, reports suggest that despite billions of dollars invested, irrigation coverage has only increased by 0.1 percent over the last decade to 17.8 percent in 2011/12.

“The so-called Maharashtra’s worst drought since 1972 is an example of India’s water management failure and a scam of huge magnitude,” environment writer Chetan Chauhan wrote in the Hindustan Times recently.

“If the water management data is analysed, only two inferences can be drawn from Maharashtra experience. First, the dams have failed to deliver and second, the government had diverted the water meant for irrigation to big industrial projects.”

There have been widespread allegations of corruption and nepotism in a 2009 irrigation scam in which the then irrigation minister cleared almost 40 projects without going through proper procedures.

Even more concerning are reports that water meant for farmers is being diverted to power plants as well as sugar industries, which make up the backbone of the agrarian economy but are extremely water intensive.

Prayas, an Indian charity, says it has evidence that more than 60 percent of water meant for farmers has, with the approval of government, been diverted to service industries, such as the power sector, in the state from 2003 to 2011.

Another charity Sajak Nagrik Manch says government policy mandates no more than 5 percent of irrigated land can be used to grow sugarcane, yet nearly 40 percent of the total irrigated land in Pune, a district in Maharashtra, is under cane cultivation.

Activists allege the skewed water distribution is due to close connections that politicians in Maharashtra have with sugar factories and cooperatives, some of which are controlled by the government ministers.

India’s agriculture minister Sharad Pawar, who is from Maharashtra, has dismissed the allegations, saying that only 7 percent of water meant for farmers was diverted to industry.

Few believe that, and experts warn of dire consequences in the region, if water management isn’t improved.

“If non-sustainable land and water use continue, the drought will spread even when rainfall is normal. The most vulnerable immediately are the poor who will be forced to migrate as environmental refugees. Agrarian distress and farmers` suicides will increase because farmers have spent huge amounts on costly seeds and chemicals, and crop failure will make the debt trap a death trap,” says prominent environmental activist Vandana Shiva.

“In a drought-prone area, water harvesting is the answer not water mining. Maharashtra needs to harvest its rain, not mine its groundwater and reroute its rivers to rich sugar barons.”

PHOTO CAPTION: A villager walks next to a dried Amrapur branch canal near Santalpur village in the western Indian state of Gujarat August 5, 2012. A dried agricultural farmland is pictured on the outskirts of Sami town in the western Indian state of Gujarat Picture taken August 5, 2012. REUTERS/Ahmad Masood

Quote hall of fame - worth another look:

Complete this sentence: South Florida really needs a..."Regional plan for controlled growth (before it becomes a concrete jungle similar to Houston), and a completely new set of elected officials that make decisions based on what's good for the future of South Florida instead of what's good for their wallets.